1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a data communication technique between image capturing apparatuses.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, digital cameras have rapidly prevailed. An image captured by a digital camera is stored in, for example, a CF® card or SD® card, and the stored image can be reproduced. When reproducing images using a digital camera, many apparatuses automatically display images like a slideshow in place of one-by-one manual selections of images by the user.
A digital camera can be directly connected to a printer to print images. In a digital camera that is capable of reproducing images with a slideshow and printing them, the user often manually sets these reproducing and printing modes while confirming images after capture. However, as the number of images grows, a troublesome number of user operations are required.
In order to improve such operability, a camera that has a function allowing the user to set in advance slideshow and printing operations for images to be newly captured, and automatically executes these settings at the time of capturing of an image in that state is available (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2003-189212).
In addition to the aforementioned function, a current digital camera incorporates a network communication function such as a wireless communication function, so as to allow easy communication with two or more cameras. Also, a system is also available whereby, when the user captures an image using a certain camera while two or more cameras are connected to be able to communicate with each other, the captured image is promptly transmitted to other cameras is also available. For example, in this system, when a user captures an image using camera A, that image is automatically transmitted also to camera B. Conversely, when another user captures an image using camera B, that image is automatically transmitted also to camera A.
As described above, upon performing communications between cameras, images captured by a plurality of cameras in an identical event site can be easily shared in real time.
A camera, which can receive and store images captured by another camera while it captures an image while two or more cameras are connected to be able to communicate with each other, stores images captured by the other camera and those captured by itself. These images are more likely to be obtained by capturing identical event scenes, and are desirably managed collectively.
For example, a user may wish to print images captured by own camera and those received from another camera or to reproduce those images with a slideshow collectively in some cases. However, in the conventional system, images captured by the own camera and those captured by another apparatus have to be individually set as slideshow or print targets, thus requiring troublesome operations.